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The thing that keeps six feet of social distancing from being effective against Covid is that the virus floats in the air for hours. The initial theory on how

The thing that keeps six feet of social distancing from being effective against Covid is that the virus floats in the air for hours. The initial theory on how Covid spreads was just wrong. Following the science requires that you be capable of changing your mind when you have proof that you were wrong.

Retric 4y ago
The science shows mitigation strategies worked, though they didn’t all work equally well. Here’s one literature review: “Public health interventions and non-pharmaceutical measurements were effective in decreasing the transmission of COVID-19. The included studies showed that travel restrictions, borders measures, quarantine of travellers arriving from affected countries, city lockdown, restrictions of mass gathering, isolation and quarantine of confirmed cases and close contacts, social distancing measures, compulsory mask wearing, contact tracing and testing, school closures and personal protective equipment use among health workers were effective in mitigating the spread of COVID-19.” https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8164261/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8164261/ As to standing six feet apart. It’s true that COVID didn’t need droplets, but it could still make use of them. There is a concept of viral load during transmission because the human immune system is much more effective stopping a single virus from infection someone than 10,000 of them. Non specific immune responses don’t provide lasting immunity but they do prevent the vast majority of infection that cross surface barriers from having a noticeable impact.
- GeekyBear 4y ago
  Sorry, but I don't find information published before the WHO finally admitted that Covid was airborne to be all that convincing. >As 2021 drew to a close, the highly contagious Omicron variant of the pandemic virus was racing around the globe, forcing governments to take drastic actions once again. The Netherlands ordered most businesses to close on 19 December, Ireland set curfews and many countries imposed travel bans in the hope of taming the tsunami of COVID-19 cases filling hospitals. Amid the wave of desperate news around the year-end holidays, one group of researchers hailed a development that had seemed as though it might never arrive. On 23 December, the World Health Organization (WHO) uttered the one word it had previously seemed incapable of applying to the virus SARS-CoV-2: ‘airborne’. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00925-7 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00925-7 Social distancing by six feet cannot by definition be effective against a virus that floats in the air for hours and completely spreads through any enclosed space.
  - Retric 4y ago
    Again if you follow the science being airborne doesn’t prevent other methods of transmission. People also got COVID from sharing needles, which doesn’t mean needle exchanges would have been particularly effective but they would have stopped a tiny fraction of cases. Transmission isn’t like computer virus which can only be spread via one specific method. Close content does increase the risk of transmission from a simple density function if nothing else.
    - GeekyBear 4y ago
      > Again if you follow the science being airborne doesn’t prevent other methods of transmission. No, if you follow the science you won't claim that social distancing can be effective against a virus that isn't limited to only spreading six feet before falling to the ground.
      - Retric 4y ago
        Reducing transmission is useful even if you don’t stop 100% of it. There are exponential returns on each case blocked because that cases doesn’t result in new cases. If the virus is still spreading exponentially then it’s simply delaying cases, but 1.01^X is monumentally different than 0.99^X even though you blocked 2% of transmissions. Saying standing six feet apart only blocks X% of cases is therefore irrelevant on it’s own, it’s only relevant in the context of overall transmission. In the end simply delaying COVID until after vaccination has saved over 1 million American lives. We could have done more, but we could also have done vastly less. PS: I linked mounds actual peer reviewed science you have ignored so it’s clear this is just wasting time. But I home other people reading this thread may come to rational conclusions.
        GeekyBear 4y ago
        At this point you sound just like the people still going on about how Ivermectin does so do something. Sorry, but following the science requires the ability to admit you're wrong in the face of new evidence.
- spookthesunset 4y ago
  It’s gonna take decades before we can judge if any of these mitigations did a single thing. The fact it is even debatable says the effect they had was negligible at best; definitely not worth their cost to society. If it was worth it, it shouldn’t require fancy research to prove, it should be completely obvious and enormous. The fact we had plans zero clue if this stuff would work at all is reason enough to not do it. We subjected billions of people to a uncontrolled experiment. Worse it was without consent.
  - Retric 4y ago
    It’s easy to see that they collectively did quite a bit, that study I linked has a lot of research behind it but even very simplistic models still show huge collective benefits. The hard part is assessing the cost and benefit of each of them individually.

Retric 4y ago

The science shows mitigation strategies worked, though they didn’t all work equally well. Here’s one literature review: “Public health interventions and non-pharmaceutical measurements were effective in decreasing the transmission of COVID-19. The included studies showed that travel restrictions, borders measures, quarantine of travellers arriving from affected countries, city lockdown, restrictions of mass gathering, isolation and quarantine of confirmed cases and close contacts, social distancing measures, compulsory mask wearing, contact tracing and testing, school closures and personal protective equipment use among health workers were effective in mitigating the spread of COVID-19.” https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8164261/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8164261/ As to standing six feet apart. It’s true that COVID didn’t need droplets, but it could still make use of them. There is a concept of viral load during transmission because the human immune system is much more effective stopping a single virus from infection someone than 10,000 of them. Non specific immune responses don’t provide lasting immunity but they do prevent the vast majority of infection that cross surface barriers from having a noticeable impact.

GeekyBear 4y ago
Sorry, but I don't find information published before the WHO finally admitted that Covid was airborne to be all that convincing. >As 2021 drew to a close, the highly contagious Omicron variant of the pandemic virus was racing around the globe, forcing governments to take drastic actions once again. The Netherlands ordered most businesses to close on 19 December, Ireland set curfews and many countries imposed travel bans in the hope of taming the tsunami of COVID-19 cases filling hospitals. Amid the wave of desperate news around the year-end holidays, one group of researchers hailed a development that had seemed as though it might never arrive. On 23 December, the World Health Organization (WHO) uttered the one word it had previously seemed incapable of applying to the virus SARS-CoV-2: ‘airborne’. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00925-7 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00925-7 Social distancing by six feet cannot by definition be effective against a virus that floats in the air for hours and completely spreads through any enclosed space.
- Retric 4y ago
  Again if you follow the science being airborne doesn’t prevent other methods of transmission. People also got COVID from sharing needles, which doesn’t mean needle exchanges would have been particularly effective but they would have stopped a tiny fraction of cases. Transmission isn’t like computer virus which can only be spread via one specific method. Close content does increase the risk of transmission from a simple density function if nothing else.
  - GeekyBear 4y ago
    > Again if you follow the science being airborne doesn’t prevent other methods of transmission. No, if you follow the science you won't claim that social distancing can be effective against a virus that isn't limited to only spreading six feet before falling to the ground.
    - Retric 4y ago
      Reducing transmission is useful even if you don’t stop 100% of it. There are exponential returns on each case blocked because that cases doesn’t result in new cases. If the virus is still spreading exponentially then it’s simply delaying cases, but 1.01^X is monumentally different than 0.99^X even though you blocked 2% of transmissions. Saying standing six feet apart only blocks X% of cases is therefore irrelevant on it’s own, it’s only relevant in the context of overall transmission. In the end simply delaying COVID until after vaccination has saved over 1 million American lives. We could have done more, but we could also have done vastly less. PS: I linked mounds actual peer reviewed science you have ignored so it’s clear this is just wasting time. But I home other people reading this thread may come to rational conclusions.
      - GeekyBear 4y ago
        At this point you sound just like the people still going on about how Ivermectin does so do something. Sorry, but following the science requires the ability to admit you're wrong in the face of new evidence.
spookthesunset 4y ago
It’s gonna take decades before we can judge if any of these mitigations did a single thing. The fact it is even debatable says the effect they had was negligible at best; definitely not worth their cost to society. If it was worth it, it shouldn’t require fancy research to prove, it should be completely obvious and enormous. The fact we had plans zero clue if this stuff would work at all is reason enough to not do it. We subjected billions of people to a uncontrolled experiment. Worse it was without consent.
- Retric 4y ago
  It’s easy to see that they collectively did quite a bit, that study I linked has a lot of research behind it but even very simplistic models still show huge collective benefits. The hard part is assessing the cost and benefit of each of them individually.